ZipRecruiter, Inc.

ZipRecruiter, Inc.

ZIP·NYSE

$3.65

-15%
IndustrialsStaffing & Employment Services

ZipRecruiter, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates a marketplace that connects job seekers and employers. Its platform is a two-sided marketplace, which enables employers to post jobs and access other features, where the job seekers are able to apply to jobs with a single click. The company was incorporated in 2010 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

At a Glance

Live Snapshot
Market Cap$314.88M
EPS-0.3700
P/E Ratio-10.62
Earnings Date08/10/2026

Earnings Call Transcript

ZIP • 2025 • Q1

Operator
Good afternoon, and thank you for standing by. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the
Emilio Sartori
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining us in our earnings conference call during which we will discuss
Ian Siegel
Thank you, and good afternoon to everyone joining us today. We believe
David Travers
Thank you, Ian, and good afternoon. As Ian touched on, despite the shifting economic environment, we continue to meaningfully improve our marketplace to deliver a better experience for both employers and job seekers. I'm excited to share a few highlights with you. First, we continue to build out our applicant tracking system integrations. Our 180 ATS integrations are an investment a decade in the making, enabling a more seamless hiring experience for enterprise employers. In Q1,
Tim Yarborough
Thank you, Dave, and good afternoon, everyone. Our first quarter revenue of $110 million came in above the midpoint of our guidance, so represents a 10% decline year-over-year and is down 1% quarter-over-quarter. The sequential revenue decline of 1% represents a more typical seasonal cadence as employers resume their hiring campaign after the holiday slowdown versus the sequential declines of 13% and 10% in Q1 '23 and Q1 '24, respectively. Quarterly paid employers were 63,000, representing an 11% decrease year-over-year, but a 10% increase sequentially. While the year-over-year decrease is reflective of continued uncertainty in the hiring market, the sequential growth represents our largest Q4 to Q1 sequential increase since 2021 and stands in contrast to the negative 2% and positive 1% quarter-over-quarter changes in Q1 '23 and Q1 '24, respectively. Revenue per paid employer was $1734, up 2% year-over-year and down 10% sequentially. The increase year-over-year is primarily due to the slight mix shift from subscription revenue to performance revenue, while the quarter-over-quarter decrease is consistent with the seasonal patterns we have seen historically when quarterly paid employers grow after the holiday slowdown in Q4. Net loss in the first quarter was $12.8 million compared to net loss of $6.5 million in Q1 '24 and a net loss of $10.8 million in Q4 '24. Q1 '25 adjusted EBITDA was $5.9 million equating to a margin of 5% compared to $20.8 million a margin of 17 in Q1 ‘24 and $14.4 million with a margin of 13% in Q4 ‘24. Net income and adjusted EBITDA decreased year-over-year primarily driven by revenue declines, while the sequential declines were primarily driven by higher marketing and personnel expenses. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities was $468 million as of March 31, 2025. In Q1, we purchased 4.6 million shares totaling $27.4 million. Moving on to guidance. Our Q2 '25 revenue guidance of $111 million at the midpoint represents a 10% year-over-year decline that was up 1% quarter-over-quarter. Our Q2 guidance assumes a continuation of paid employer trends we have observed to date. While we are prepared for a wider range of scenarios given the increased macroeconomic uncertainty versus last quarter, we remain cautiously optimistic. Employers are keeping hiring activity steady while navigating the volatile landscape created by the macro uncertainty. Our adjusted EBITDA guidance for Q2 '25 is $7 million at the midpoint or a 6% adjusted EBITDA margin. We remain disciplined in deploying marketing dollars towards campaigns we believe will drive strong ROI, letting data guide our decision making as we continue to build the
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from the line of Ralph Schackart with Williams Blair.
Ralph Schackart
In terms of the wait and see attitude, I think, that you called out and talked about on the call here. Is that sort of, I guess, widespread across geographies and, I guess, different verticals? Or would it be perhaps more focused, I don't know, tariff related, I guess, types of positions?
Ian Siegel
That is a great question. And what I would say about that is, while the bounds of uncertainty on the macro are increasing, what is true today is that our internal data shows that employers have not yet pulled back. So employer hiring activity is consistent with the trends that we observed coming into 2025. That informs both the quarterly guidance that we've provided you as well as the outlook of achieving year-over-year growth in Q4 of 2025. We are watching this closely. We have very sensitive measurement capabilities of what is going on with hiring demand, and we have the ability to rapidly respond either way. So if we see hiring demand increasing, we can increase investment rapidly. If we see it decreasing, we can pull back investment rapidly. We're watching it closely. Obviously, these are interesting times. And so we will continue to monitor it. But as of right now, the data that we see internally does not reflect any sort of pullback from employers.
Ralph Schackart
Great. Maybe just a follow-up there. And when you're having conversations with SMBs and enterprise alike, what are the signs that they're waiting for to maybe become a little bit more optimistic and lean more aggressively into hiring trends? I know you said that the quit rate is still really, really low, but just kind of curious what you're hearing from your customer base.
David Travers
Thanks, Ralph. This is Dave. Yes. So as you said, we talk to our customers of all sizes all the time. And what we hear from them consistently when it comes to hiring decisions as well as CapEx and other major investment decisions is that certainty is what helps them. So understanding what the rules of the road are and having confidence those will remain the rules of the road for quarters and years to come is what we hear them talking about. We've definitely noticed a change over the past few months in the tenor of some of those conversations as they talk about what they expect in the future. But their behavior, as Ian just referenced, has been consistent with what we talked about last quarter.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Josh Chan with UBS.
Josh Chan
So I guess in light of your comments about the balance of uncertainty within the macro, how do you expect to manage your investment trajectory if the signals could change and even go back and forth? So I guess how are you planning to adjust for an environment that could get better or worse at any time, I guess?
Tim Yarborough
Josh, thanks for the question. This is Tim. So we let the data drive our decisions. So even when the bounds of uncertainty remain fairly wide, we're prepared because we have a very flexible operating structure. So we can dial up our sales and marketing investment to take advantage of opportunities as they materialize fairly quickly, and that's because we retain a lot of flexibility across multiple channels of marketing. And on the other side, if things erode, then we can cut back on spending significantly because we have strategically not committed significant amounts of capital into future periods. So as we reflect on Q1 and look forward to Q2, we're letting all of the data that we see right now guide our decisions, but again, retain that flexibility to be prepared for a wide range of scenarios.
Josh Chan
And could you remind us what the typical seasonality is going from Q1 to Q4? And is that what gives you confidence that Q4 can grow year-over-year? It's just assuming normal seasonality kind of continues from here.
Tim Yarborough
Sure. Yes. So normal seasonality would show something like sequential growth from Q1 to Q3 and then oftentimes a dip going from Q3 to Q4. And so when we talk about the likely scenario of achieving growth by Q4, it's based on the trends that we've seen so far continuing throughout the course of the year.
Operator
Your next question for today comes from the line of Trevor Young with Barclays.
Trevor Young
Just two for me. First, just related to kind of employer behavior. I appreciate you're not seeing a sharp pullback nor an acceleration. But are you seeing any other behaviors that would be indicative of some increased hesitancy? I'm thinking things maybe like reviewing candidates longer or fewer candidates or maybe taking longer to fill a job that would be kind of indicative of like a higher bar to hire a candidate than previously? And then second, on the marketing side, are you finding new opportunities to deploy dollars attractively with some marketing channels, see other advertisers pull back? I think historically, you said you try to be opportunistic when some dislocations happen. I'm just wondering if that opportunity has presented itself yet.
David Travers
Great. Thanks, Trevor. This is Dave. I'll take the first one on employer behavior. We have seen a change in employer behavior during the post COVID period, where employers don't feel the pressure to move as fast as they did at the peaks of the great resignation in '21 and '22. And so they have felt the ability to take slightly longer, wait a little bit longer to see which candidates come in on the margins. That said, they're still moving fairly quickly with a relatively good dose of confidence when they do decide to hire. But that really, that change in the rush to hire has really been much more correlated with the quits rate than anything about recent changes in macro outlook and the sort of overall sentiment about how the shape of the macro economy may go over the year. So we have seen over a few years a shift, but nothing over the past few months that looks notable or different. The main thing we see is that behavior has been quite steady in the wake of notable uptick in future oriented qualitative confidence in November, December, January and a notable downtick since then in qualitative confidence. But throughout that period, consistent with the guidance Tim talked about, we've seen steady behavior from employers.
Ian Siegel
Yes. And on the marketing point, this is Ian. We've seen a relatively consistent slate of competitors in the media channels in which we advertise. That said, we're definitely seeing some of them pull back to some degree in some of those channels. However, both the demand we're seeing from employers and the response we're getting to the advertising we're running has been consistent since we've entered the year and is not explained by or fully bolstered by the fact that competition and competitive levels are changing. This looks more endemic to the overall market itself and the level of appetite employers have for hiring and the eagerness and the frequency with which they are looking for solutions.
Operator
And since we have no further questions at this time, that concludes the question and answer session in today's conference call.
Transcript from May 9, 2025

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